COVID-19: What is MSF doing?

MSF teams are racing to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic in the more than 70 countries in which we run programmes, while opening projects in new countries as they become pandemic hotspots.

MSF’s COVID-19 response focuses on three main priorities: supporting health authorities to provide care for patients with COVID-19; protecting people who are vulnerable and at risk; and keeping essential medical services running.

Across our projects, MSF teams have been improving infection prevention and control measures to protect patients and staff and prevent further spread of the coronavirus. It is absolutely crucial to protect health workers and patients both in COVID-19 care centres and in all other centres providing vital health services, to prevent health facilities from amplifying the pandemic or being forced to close their doors.

Health systems worldwide are urgently in need of personal protective equipment (PPE) so that essential medical services can stay open. The global shortage of PPE is indicative of the reality for health workers in most countries where we work, who face shortages of crucial items such as masks and aprons, and medical tools such as tests. Having access to protective equipment, to COVID-19 tests, to oxygen and to drugs for supportive care, becomes more and more urgent as COVID-19 spreads in countries with little access to these tools.